


Cold drinks in hot weather

by mozaikmage



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, HAPPY BIRTHDAY AKAASHI KEIJI, M/M, three if you count me the person who wrote this in the first place, training camp arc, two gay disasters, vending machines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 09:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16870333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mozaikmage/pseuds/mozaikmage
Summary: Akaashi retrieves his bottled tea from the vending machine. “Kuroo-san,” he says, “is a pain.”





	Cold drinks in hot weather

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday Akaashi Keiji  
> this was originally gonna be posted on Kuroo's birthday but I just, didn't finish in time, so here it is now

Akaashi’s always had a hard time falling asleep in unfamiliar places, and the summer training camp is no exception. No matter how exhausted he is, it’s hot, and uncomfortable, and Bokuto snores despite his insistence that he most certainly does not. And he can’t stop thinking about Certain Things, this time around.

Like the way Kuroo Tetsurou (of all people) smiles before blocking one of Bokuto’s spikes.

Akaashi gives up trying to sleep and decides to walk to the vending machine for a drink. Maybe the walk will clear his head.

The nearest vending machine is outside, in that half-hallway, half-open to the elements walkway thing around the corner from where the teams are all sleeping. Summer humidity means it’s still warm outside, even in the middle of the night. Akaashi’s hair is frizzier than it usually is because of the moisture in the air. He tells himself he doesn’t care about his appearance, but that’s a lie.

He sees Kozume scrunched down next to the vending machine, face glowing blue from the light of his video game.

“Oh. Hello,” says Akaashi.

Kozume nods. Akaashi slips a hundred yen coin into the machine.

“Couldn't sleep?” Akaashi ventures. A part of him realizes that being friends with Kuroo's best friend might help him with his current problem. The rest of him still privately considers Kozume to be intimidating. Who knows what someone that quiet is thinking about all the time.

Kozume makes a “hm” noise that tells Akaashi absolutely nothing. “You?”

Akaashi retrieves his bottled tea from the vending machine. “Kuroo-san,” he says, “is a pain.”

“Yeah.” Kozume doesn't look up from his game.

Akaashi twists the cap off his tea with some force. “It'd be okay if he was just… ” He gestures with his free hand in an attempt to encompass the whole of Kuroo's unfairly attractive appearance. “You know?”

Kozume continues to mash the buttons of his game controls without looking up.

“But he's also like… ” Akaashi makes a face. “Do you get it?” He hates being lost for words like this, hates that he can't just say what he means. He hopes Kozume understands anyway somehow.

Kozume glances up from his game and blinks at Akaashi impassively. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

Akaashi slides down the wall next to him. “I hate everything about this.”

Kozume stares, and then very slowly and uncertainly pats Akaashi on the back once.

Akaashi takes tiny sips of his tea and watches Kozume play for a bit. It’s a good enough distraction, he supposes, and he’s just about ready to go back to the Fukurodani room and sleep when he hears footsteps coming down the hallway. 

“There you are, Kenma, it’s fucking one in the morning and I will not hesitate to drag you to breakfast tomorrow. Or, today.” Kuroo cuts himself off with a yawn. “Sup, Akaashi.”

Akaashi and Kozume both look up. Kuroo’s barefoot and wearing shorts and a t-shirt with a stretched out neck and holes at the seams. His hair’s still damp from the bath, not quite sticking up in its usual fashion. He rubs his eyes, looking like an improbably tall little kid.

“Kuroo-san,” Akaashi says, in an impressively normal tone of voice, all things considered.

“Why’re you awake?” Kuroo leans forward. 

Akaashi gestures towards Kuroo with the green tea. 

Kuroo nods wisely, like Akaashi had just made some kind of very intelligent argument. Kuroo Tetsurou is a dork, Akaashi thinks, not for the first time. An unfairly endearing dork. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to Akaashi Keiji.

Without thinking about it, Akaashi sticks out a hand, and Kuroo actually takes it and helps him to his feet. Akaashi jerks his hand away immediately, but it’s still tingling where Kuroo touched it. 

Kuroo helps Kozume stand up too, though, so it’s not like Akaashi’s special or anything.

“I already slept,” Kozume grumbles, leaning into Kuroo. 

Kuroo elbows him. “Too bad. Nekomata would kill me if he knew we were awake this late, so come on.”

“I went to bed straight after dinner, so it’s just like I woke up really really early.”

Kuroo rolls his eyes. “Not this again.” He turns to Akaashi and explains. “Kenma’s parents wouldn’t let him stay up late to play games when we were younger, so he’d sleep for a couple of hours and then wake up and play games absurdly early in the morning.”

Akaashi blinks. “That’s...enterprising.” 

Kozume doesn’t smile in response, but he seems to be frowning slightly less.

“Enterprising,” Kuroo repeats. “You’re an interesting guy, Akaashi-kun.” He’s looking at Akaashi in that analytical way he looks at Tsukishima, or Karasuno’s captain. Like he’s trying to figure out what makes Akaashi tick. Not an entirely welcome look to be on the receiving end of at 1 in the morning.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Akaashi says.

Nekoma’s room is down the hall from Fukurodani’s, so they walk back together, Kenma still playing his game with the volume turned off, Kuroo occasionally tugging Kenma in different directions so he doesn’t walk into a wall or a trash can with practiced ease. It must be nice, Akaashi thinks, to know someone for so long and so well. He’s never had many close friends, and his friends from middle school all ended up going to different high schools, so they’ve lost touch. Deep down though, he can admit he's jealous of how close Kenma and Kuroo are.

“Have a good night,” Kuroo tells Akaashi, when they reach the door to Fukurodani’s room. Kuroo hovers uncertainly for a second and then decides to ruffle Akaashi’s hair, like Akaashi’s a small and fuzzy animal instead of a human person a year younger and six centimeters shorter than Kuroo himself. Akaashi is too surprised and too tired to be properly indignant at this.

“Your hands are cold,” he ends up saying. “Good night, Kuroo-san, Kozume.”

“Kenma’s fine,” says Kozume. Behind him, Kuroo is smirking. 

“Okay then, call me Keiji. Good night.” Akaashi glares at Kuroo for half a second, then slides the door shut before he can embarrass himself further. 

He wakes up to Bokuto dragging him out of his futon several hours earlier than Akaashi would’ve preferred. Mistakes were made, Akaashi thinks darkly as he gets ready for breakfast.

“Whoa dude, are you okay? You look super dead. You haven’t looked this dead since that time you forgot you had an essay due for Japanese Lit and pulled an all-nighter to finish it,” Bokuto informs him at breakfast. 

Akaashi has his head down on the table and is trying to work out if it’s possible to sleep and eat at the same time. “Why do you even remember that?” He steals a carrot from Bokuto’s plate while he’s distracted.

“Hey, get your own carrots!” Bokuto yanks his plate out of the way. 

“It’s like, you’re a human, you know,” Konoha jumps in. “And not just some kind of perfect-overachieving-robot.”

“I’m not an overachiever,” Akaashi says, “I’m not even in the top five of my class.” He was seventh last time he checked. Bokuto and Konoha give him matching unimpressed looks.

“You should get a coffee from the vending machine before practice starts,” Konoha suggests.

The vending machine does not have black coffee, which Akaashi prefers, but it has black tea, which has some caffeine in it and is therefore better than nothing. Akaashi pulls the can out of the machine and pops the tab open when he hears a familiar voice behind him.

“Good morning,” says Kuroo fucking Tetsurou.

Akaashi turns and Kuroo actually jumps back slightly. Rude. “Wow, you look tired.”

“I wonder why,” Akaashi deadpans. He should probably be more polite, but he’s really not in the mood for any of Kuroo’s nonsense today. Kuroo grins at him anyway, and Akaashi can feel his heart rate speed up for a reason completely unrelated to the caffeinated drink. He steps away from the vending machine. “Were you going to get something?”

Kuroo shakes his head. 

“Then why are you here?”

Kuroo’s eyes widen and his mouth pulls into an expression like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t be. “Oh. You know. Just walking around.”

“You’re probably tired too, after last night,” Akaashi says, pulling the rest of his coins out of his pocket. If he keeps buying canned drinks at this rate, he’ll be out of change by day three of training camp. But that can be a problem for his future self, he thinks in a rare moment of recklessness.

He pushes two more hundred-yen coins through the slot. “What would you like, Kuroo-san?”

“What?” 

Kuroo still seems totally out of it. He blinks at Akaashi dazedly.

“What would you like to drink,” Akaashi repeats.

“What? You— for me?”

“That’s what I literally just said.” Akaashi takes a moment to regret all of his choices in life that led to this moment before continuing. “With all due respect, Kuroo-san, is this a sleep-deprivation thing or are you just like this?”

“I’m just like this, but the lack of sleep enhances it.” Kuroo smirks. Akaashi can feel his face heat up, and turns away quickly.

The vending machine lights are still glowing, demanding them to press a button. “Pick something, Kuroo-san, please.”

Kuroo presses the button for a sweetened milky coffee thing. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

They lean against the wall next to the vending machine and sip their drinks, Kuroo standing slightly closer to Akaashi than Akaashi had anticipated. Maybe Akaashi’s imagining it, but it feels like Kuroo’s physical presence is making the already blisteringly hot unairconditioned hallway even hotter.

It feels...horrifically awkward, and Akaashi’s not sure why, when the two of them had always gotten along decently before. Stupid feelings, coming in and ruining everything.

“Do you not like sweets?” Kuroo asks eventually.

Akaashi looks at him. “Not really, why?”

“You’re drinking unsweetened tea, and it seemed as good of a conversation topic as any.” Kuroo shrugs.

Akaashi rubs his eyes. “I feel like you’re normally better at conversations than this.”

“That’s fair. We could just stand here silently like we’re in a commercial or something.”

“A commercial for vending machines,” Akaashi quips.

“Yes. Oh, that reminds me,” Kuroo pulls out his phone and flicks open the phone app. “My dad and I were visiting a family friend in Izu and I saw this abandoned vending machine on the road, it was wild. There’s daffodils growing around it, look.”

Akaashi leans closer to see the photo, heart pounding in his ears from the proximity. It’s a nice, if strange image. The photo was clearly taken at sunset, the vending machine tinted lavender in the fading light. The daffodils growing around it are turning brown and wilting, and that makes the machine seem that much more empty. It reminds Akaashi of something, but he’s not sure what.

“Interesting subject choice, but I’d have pulled out a little more. I feel like a wider shot would emphasize the feeling of isolation.”

Kuroo gapes. “Are you like, a photography nerd or something?”

Whoops. Akaashi pulls back. He usually restricts the photography talk to internet forum and his Instagram (top-secret from everyone he knows in real life). He didn’t even bring his DSLR to training camp, too worried about someone accidentally breaking it by doing something stupid. “Never mind. We should get back, breakfast is probably almost over.” Akaashi pushes himself off the wall and speedwalks back to the cafeteria, Kuroo following him.

“No, no, no, I want to hear more about your secret hobby!”

“I don’t have a secret hobby.”

“Fine, I’ll drop it. For now.”

Akaashi turns around and stares at him, eyebrow raised. “Why do you even care?”

Kuroo shrugs. “I want to talk to you more, and I like how you looked when you were talking about the photo thing.”

Akaashi absolutely cannot read too much into that. He feels like he’s at the end of a long rally in the third set of a match, but like, emotionally. Like everything’s been building up and up and he’s about to explode from Kuroo standing too close and smirking too much and looming over him even though he’s only  _ six centimeters taller _ that’s not a lot— 

They’re outside the door to the cafeteria, and Akaashi leans against it and finally exclaims, “Why is everything so  _ awkward _ now?”

Kuroo blinks at him, and Akaashi continues, unfazed. “We were friends, right? Like we didn’t talk much, but we got along okay. What changed?”

The door opens, sending Akaashi toppling forward. Suzumeda pulls the door closed behind her and Shinzen’s manager with a gentle smile. “Sorry, Akaashi-san! Practice starts in fifteen,” Suzumeda informs them, then goes back to talking to Shinzen’s manager.

Kuroo grabs his shoulder and sets him upright out of the path of the swinging door. He  _ keeps doing things like that, _ Akaashi notices. Maybe it’s because he’s used to walking around with Kenma, who’s always paying more attention to his games than his surroundings. 

“Catch you later then,” Kuroo says, slinking away to Nekoma’s corner of the cafeteria. He doesn’t answer Akaashi’s question.

Akaashi’s good at compartmentalizing. He can put his stupid Kuroo-related feelings aside and focus on playing volleyball during their practice games. No one notices anything out of the usual until they’re playing Nekoma again. Bokuto’s doing his usual ridiculous posturing in front of the net before the game starts when Akaashi accidentally makes eye contact with Kuroo and feels his stomach drop all the way to the center of the earth.

Kuroo is at his most attractive when he’s focusing, eyes burning, smirk menacing. Akaashi looks at him and thinks,  _ fuck, I want you to look at me like that.  _

“I want to set myself on fire,” Akaashi mutters, finally looking away. Thankfully, no one seems to hear him.

Anyway, he does his best, and they play about as well as they usually do against Nekoma, and if someone noticed that Akaashi’s sets are a little slower, a little more distracted today than before, no one says anything. He gets through their extra practice just fine too, thanks to the distraction Tsukishima’s crisis provides. After Tsukishima leaves and Bokuto bounds off to get dinner, Akaashi and Kuroo hang back. They watch Tsukishima walk away and then turn to face each other. Without a net in between them, Kuroo feels larger and closer and more vivid, somehow.

“So,” Kuroo says.

“So.” Akaashi raises his eyebrows. “We’ve both been acting kind of...weird this training camp, huh.”

“I guess.” Kuroo steps closer. “I know why I’ve been weird, but you’re hard to read.” He puts one hand on Akaashi’s cheek, more gently than Akaashi would’ve expected. Not that Akaashi allowed himself to consider this possibility in any level of detail. “Tell me if I’m interpreting this all wrong.”

“Not wrong,” Akaashi breathes. “For once.” He tilts his head up and Kuroo’s mouth meets his.

They’re both still sweaty and gross from practice, but Akaashi’s not thinking about that right now. Akaashi threads his fingers through Kuroo’s hair with one hand and grabs the hem of his shirt with the other. He’s not sure how long they stay like that, just standing in the middle of the gym. Kuroo doesn’t really taste like anything, Akaashi notices. They finally pull apart, faces flushed, breathing hard.

What are you supposed to do in this situation? Akaashi wipes his mouth off with his shirt collar, but it’s still tingling. Is Akaashi supposed to say thank you, or something?

“We’re going to miss dinner, Kuroo-san,” he ends up saying, and walks out of there as quickly as possible.

They don’t talk about it again. They probably should, but they don’t. 

Akaashi notices Bokuto looking between the two of them during extra practice, confused at how his best friends seem to be avoiding each other. But the thought of being open and explicit about feelings with anyone makes Akaashi’s throat close up. A relationship of any kind is pretty much out of the question, at least for now.

Akaashi sees Kuroo talking to Kenma after the barbeque on the last day, sprawled on the grass in the shadow of Shinzen’s gym building. “I don’t know, like, it was really nice, but how am I supposed to talk to him now?” 

Akaashi walks away.

He ends up thinking about The Incident a lot, over the next few months. Usually when he can’t fall asleep at night, sometimes when Nekoma comes up in conversation. Not often, though. He’s capable of separating volleyball from Kuroo Tetsurou. They beat Nekoma in the playoffs and lose to Itachiyama, and even though Kuroo’s there, Akaashi has other things to worry about than the lingering memory of Kuroo’s mouth.

The next year, Kuroo heads off to Keio, Bokuto to Chuo, and Akaashi’s the new captain of Fukurodani’s volleyball team. It’s less scary than he expected it to be, but it is difficult. Akaashi finds himself hanging out a lot more often with Kozume Kenma, a friendship melted together more out of necessity than anything. “You should message him,” Kenma says, in the middle of a conversation about practice match schedules over McDonald’s. “See what happens.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Kenma gives Akaashi the single least impressed look Akaashi has ever seen on another person and nibbles his apple pie. Akaashi slumps a fraction.

“He keeps whining at me about whether or not he should’ve asked you out or something after training camp last year, and it’s been months, and I’m sick of it.” Kenma picks up one of Akaashi’s fries and flicks it at Akaashi’s face. “Fix this.”

Akaashi unlocks his phone and stares at the home screen for a bit. “I’m going to fuck it up. Or Kuroo’s going to fuck it up. Neither of us are any good at feelings stuff.”

“That’s stupid.” Kenma throws another french fry at him. “Kuro’s better at giving other people advice than following it himself, yeah, but you’re both smart and capable of learning. Are you willing to try it or not?”

Akaashi opens the “compose new message” window in LINE, and hesitates. But he remembers what it felt like, at the vending machine, in the gym, and decides that yes, he wants to feel like that again. 

Kuroo types for an agonizing few minutes while Akaashi tries not to panic and Kenma enjoys his apple pie. Finally, the screen lights up.

_ From: Kuroo _

_ Coffee sounds great! When+where? _

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me on [tumblr](http://cubistemoji.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](http://twitter.com/mashazart/)  
> 


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